Body
Overview
Glossary of Digital Accessibility Terms and Abbreviations
Detailed Information
Accessibility Laws, Government Agencies, and Organizations
United States
- Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): Prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in public life, including digital spaces.
- New ADA Title II Ruling: Updates (April 24, 2024) to ensure web content and mobile apps from state and local governments are accessible.
- Section 508: Requires federal agencies to make electronic and information technology accessible.
- Department of Justice (DOJ): Enforces laws like the ADA to uphold civil rights.
- U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR): Ensures equal access to education and enforces laws like Section 504 and Title II of the ADA.
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI): Provides guidelines and resources like WCAG, ATAG, and UAAG for web accessibility.
European Union
- EU Web Accessibility Directive (EN 301 549): Sets accessibility standards for public sector websites and apps in EU member states.
Canada
- Accessible Canada Act (ACA): Aims to eliminate barriers for people with disabilities by 2040.
Standards and Guidelines
- Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG): Provides standards for making web content accessible. Current version: WCAG 2.1.
- Section 508 Standards: Guidelines to ensure information technology complies with Section 508.
- MathML: An XML-based language for accessible mathematical notations on the web.
- ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications): Enhances accessibility for dynamic content and interfaces.
Accessibility Compliance Documents
- VPAT (Voluntary Product Accessibility Template®): Describes how a product meets accessibility requirements. Required by some institutions despite being "voluntary."
- Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR): Summarizes how a product conforms to accessibility standards, derived from a VPAT.
- HECVAT: A questionnaire for assessing third-party vendor security and accessibility practices.
- Accessibility Roadmap: Outlines an organization’s plan to improve accessibility.
- Accessibility Statement: Communicates an organization’s commitment to digital accessibility, including standards followed and contact information.
Technical Terms
- Accessibility Testing: Evaluates digital products for usability by individuals with disabilities.
- Accesskeys: Keyboard shortcuts for easier navigation.
- Alt Text: Descriptive text for images, aiding non-visual access.
- Assistive Technology (AT): Tools (e.g., screen readers) aiding access to digital content.
- Automated Accessibility Checkers: Scan for WCAG compliance but require manual review.
- Built-In Accessibility Checkers: Identify software-specific accessibility issues.
- Built-In Accessibility Features: Software features like screen reader compatibility and text-to-speech.
- Color Contrast Ratio: Minimum WCAG ratios: 4.5:1 for regular text, 3:1 for large text.
- Color Contrast: Difference between text and background for readability.
- Document Accessibility: Ensures documents (e.g., PDFs) are usable with assistive technologies.
- Inaccessible PDF: PDFs lacking proper structure for assistive tools.
- Keyboard Navigation: Allows website or app navigation via keyboard alone.
- Keyboard Shortcuts: Enable quick access to functions, enhancing usability.
- Magnifier: Enlarges text and images for users with low vision.
- Optical Character Recognition (OCR): Converts scanned images into searchable, editable text.
- PDF Accessibility: Makes PDFs accessible via features like tags and readable text.
- PDF Remediation: The process of making a PDF document accessible.
- PDF Tags: Provide structure for screen readers to interpret content.
- Screen Reader: Reads text aloud for visually impaired users (e.g., JAWS, NVDA).
- Screen Magnifier: Assistive technology used by low vision users to read and navigate web pages and documents
- Semantic HTML: HTML that conveys structure and meaning for assistive technologies.
- User Agents: Software like browsers and screen readers.
- Web Accessibility: Ensures digital content is usable by individuals with disabilities.
- Zoom: Enlarges screen content for better visibility.
Common Digital Accessibility Acronyms
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ACR
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Accessibility Conformance Report
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ADA
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Americans with Disabilities
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ARIA
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Accessibility Rich Internet Applications
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CSS
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Cascading Style Sheets
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DOJ
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Department of Justice
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HECVAT
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Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit
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HTML
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Hypertext Markup Language
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MathML
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Mathematical Markup Language
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OCR
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Optical Character Recognition
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OCR
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Office for Civil Rights
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PDF
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Portable Document Format
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VPAT
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Voluntary Product Accessibility Template
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W3C
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World Wide Web Consortium
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WAI
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Web Accessibility Initiative
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WCAG
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Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
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Testing Tools
- Axe Devtools Pro Automated testing tool for individual web pages
- Color Contrast Analyzer testing tool for individual web pages
- DubBot Automated testing tool used by the 4 campuses
- UDOIT Automated testing tool for Canvas courses
- WAVE Automated testing tool for induvial web pages
Testing Terms
- Alt Text: Text that is read when a screen reader encounters an image
- Automated Testing: tools that are used to quickly identify common accessibility issues
- Color Contrast: Difference between text and background for readability.
- Heading levels Provides structure to web pages. Enables screen reader users to navigate efficiently
- Keyboard focus: The border around an element that where the user is.
- Manual Testing: Uses human judgement to assess the accessibility of content
- Placeholder text: Is the temporary text displayed inside a text or search box.
- Reflow: Increase the web browser to 400% and test website
- Resize: Increase the web browser to 200% and test website
- Screen Reader: Assistive technology used by blind users to read and navigate web pages and documents
- Severity Level: Method of prioritizing accessibility issues according to impact on users with disabilities
- Skip navigation link: Allows user to bypass repetitive content such as menus to go directly to the main content.
- Zoom: Browser command used to adjust the size of web page content
For Additional Assistance
For more information, please contact the IT Accessibility Center at itaccessibilitycenter@missouri.edu or call (573) 884-2828.